


chaser

by searwrites (sears)



Category: Free!
Genre: Angst, M/M, canon compliant word vomit basically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-14
Updated: 2014-11-14
Packaged: 2018-02-25 09:49:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2617442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sears/pseuds/searwrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>this is what happens when i convince myself that sousuke really did coach momotarou and i make myself upset over it. may or may not add a part 2 to this, as it is intentionally left open-ended.</p>
            </blockquote>





	chaser

“Momo!” Sousuke bellows, slamming open his younger teammate’s door. His voice is as loud as yelling, but in that way that still manages to sound calm, somehow more threatening because of it. “You better not be sleeping.”

Ai yelps at the thud of the door hitting the wall, and Sousuke catches a soft rustle from the top bunk. Gotcha. Ai even lifts his feet out of Sousuke’s way, as if he’d stomp on them in his route to rouse Momo. He makes a mental note to tell him to stop acting like people are allowed to walk all over him, but that’s for later.

Sousuke hoists himself up on the first rung of the bunk ladder, catching just the fire red tufts of Momo’s hair being covered quickly by his blanket. When it’s obvious Sousuke is still there, waiting, Momo peeks his head out.

“Are you seriously sleeping?” Sousuke asks.

“I’m a growing boy,” Momo protests, his voice growing high and defensive, “I need rest!”

Sousuke sighs, his elbows heavy on the frame of the top bunk. “You were the only one not at practice today. Even Ai was there, and he’s been putting in double the hours you have.”

“It’s just one day, jeez,” Momo whines, and the way he shifts makes the blanket drop further down from his chin. Sousuke catches sight of a bright green corner of something clutched to his chest, and immediately recognizes it as his frog face iPad cover.

“Is that your iPad?” he asks, but Momo only tugs it back down beneath the covers, out of sight.

Sousuke lurches up another rung on the ladder and snatches it right from his fingers, ignoring the way the boy shouts at him for it.

Looking at the thing only causes his face to knit in confusion. His headphones are plugged in, and there’s something playing on it.

“You’re watching nature programs instead of coming to practice?” Sousuke asks.

“It’s shark week!” Momo shouts, like he’s offended.

“God, not you too.”

Ai peeks his timid little face up over the far edge of the bunk frame, lifting a guilty hand and saying, “I might have told him about it. I didn’t know such a thing existed until Rin-senpai explained it to me.”

“Alright, enough of this,” Sousuke says, connecting the dots in his head and making sense of the reason Ai and Rin used the Home Economics classroom to bake shark shaped cookies with blue sprinkles on them earlier that week. “Come on,” he tugs at Momo’s t-shirt, ignoring the put-upon way the boy groans in protest, “We’re doing night drills now. Your form needs work.”

“But it’s after hours,” Momo mumbles pitifully, though he obediently follows Sousuke down the ladder of his bunk, and Sousuke swears he catches him grinning at Ai.

Ai bids them farewell and good luck, which is silly for a practice, but isn’t surprising coming from Ai, and then Momo follows Sousuke down the stairs of the dorm to head towards the pool. Momo stumbles halfway down them, and he instinctively latches onto Sousuke’s arm. Even once Sousuke steadies him, trying not to laugh (the boy still hasn’t grown into his limbs yet, he’s like a baby giraffe sometimes), Momo doesn’t let go of him.

He’s been doing that a lot lately - grabbing Sousuke and not letting go. And maybe Sousuke isn’t completely honest about his form needing work, but he can definitely be a lazy piece of shit when he wants to be.

  
-

  
If there’s one thing Momotarou needs work on, it’s taking direction.

“Are you trying to kill me?”

The boy stands in the shallow end of the pool during one of their night drills, sputtering and coughing. He seems to agree that he needs some help on his form, but he’s not as easy to mold as someone like Ai, puts up more of a fight.

“If you didn’t tip your head back every time I straightened your back you wouldn’t have this problem. Expand your lungs, fix your breathing. Your center of balance is here,” Sousuke emphasizes his point by pressing his open palm just below his sternum, the upper part of his belly softer now that he’s standing, instead of stretched out on his back.

“Maybe for you, but you’re top heavy, I’m not,” Momo argues.

Sousuke quirks a brow. “Top heavy?”

“Yeah like,” Momo gestures vaguely to his own shoulders, blushing as he does, “-muscles and stuff.”

Sousuke scoffs, and then tugs at Momo’s shoulder to turn him around, ease him onto his back. “Try again,” he commands.

Momo does try, and with one hand holding beneath his lower back, and then other just below his ribs, Sousuke can feel it, can feel the way his chest expands as he breathes.

“Much better. Fix your balance first and you’ll stop running into walls. Knowing your body is the beginning, then you can tell it where to go.”

“Do I weigh anything?” Momo asks, tilting his head a little to look at Sousuke. His hair isn’t in a cap, just floating around his head in bright red tendrils that look almost alive under the water, the tempting curls of some kind of wayward sea creature.

“No,” Sousuke says, and suddenly the pool seems infinitely more silent - private, even, though they’ve been here alone for over an hour. “The water takes your weight, I’m just guiding you.”

“You’re good at it,” Momo says, dropping his focus and letting his legs fall, standing close enough that Sousuke’s hand barely drifts away from his back. “Guiding me, I mean.”

Sousuke chuckles softly. “What, decided I’m not trying to kill you anymore?”

Momo tsk’s and then splashes Sousuke right in the face.

The loud slosh of Momo’s hand cutting through the water, the way it cracks through the silence like a serrated knife, it gets Sousuke riled up enough to splash back. Before he really knows what’s happening, Momo’s thin legs are wrapped around his waist beneath the water. Momo has an arm around his neck, trying to dunk him, but all he really manages to do is cling to him harder.

It’s just unfortunate timing. The way Momo’s struggles come out in panted breaths and giddy laughter, right up against the side of Sousuke’s face, feels almost like a test of will. To have his wriggling body, skin slicked by water, slide against his, it’s almost cruel - like the universe knows he’s been curious about this boy, and felt like rubbing his nose in it.

It’s even more unfortunate that as stubborn as Momo can be, he’s also acutely perceptive. So when Sousuke’s body goes stiff, when he makes that physical effort to shut down whatever response his body has to Momo writhing up against him, Momo can tell. When he stops moving and trying to dunk his head beneath the water, he’s still clinging, his arms sliding more cautiously around Sousuke’s shoulder.

“Momo,” Sousuke warns.

“What?” Momo says, like he hasn’t just tightened his legs around Sousuke’s waist - like Sousuke can’t feel the way Momo tilts his hips forward, presses his erection into Sousuke’s stomach.

“We can’t do this,” Sousuke clarifies, because Momo is barely a first year, fifteen and too young to even be thinking about this kind of thing.

“Why not?” Momo leans in, whispering, the silence wrapping around them deafening this time, only the gentle slosh of water between their chests to be heard when Momo hugs him closer. He presses his nose to Sousuke’s temple, and then in a way that can only be described as desperately eager, he licks the shell of Sousuke’s ear.

And there is only so much Sousuke can take.

He forcefully detaches Momo from himself, peels him away holds his shoulders at arm’s length. He stares at Momo’s face, at the red flush to his cheeks, crawling down his neck, at the almost glazed over cloud to his eyes, bright and nervous. Sousuke aches when he looks down, sees the boy squeezing his cock in the water, trying to get it to flag. Sousuke wants to kiss him, soothe the nervous tension from his shoulders with his open palms, but that would be so beyond inappropriate, as if this isn’t already.

“We can’t,” Sousuke says again, this time his throat so raw from restraint, his voice like gravel.

It’s silent again, the quiet ripple of the water settling around their stiff bodies, Momo sifting through his thoughts, trying to clear his head enough to speak.

“I want to,” Momo whispers, and Sousuke’s chest tightens.

“You’re too young,” Sousuke says, groaning when he realizes his hands have moved up from the kid’s shoulders towards his neck, that he was this close to cupping his jaw, fitting his thumb beneath his ear at his pulse, tipping his head back- “Sorry, shit.”

Momo sniffles a little, lets go of himself beneath the water and clutches at his elbows, his arms crossed over his chest. Sousuke feels no better than the dirt beneath this building, and Momo looks so horrified with himself. The water on him looks like extra weight, his shoulders drooped and his hair all a mess in his face, still damp and clinging to his reddened cheeks. The ashamed little frown on his face makes Sousuke feel like someone’s pushing needles through his chest, one by one, in rapid succession. His heart is still beating like a hollow drum, loud and reverberating, leaving him to wonder if the ripples around his chest in the water aren’t from that alone.

“Hey, look, it’s okay, alright? Just. We can’t,” Sousuke stumbles over his words, and Momo looks no less disheveled. None of what he’s saying is helping. “I think we’ve had enough practice sessions, for now.”

Momo lifts his head sharply to send him a terribly hurt looking glare, which makes Sousuke feel like his chest is falling to pieces from the inside out. “You should be good to go for prefecturals now.”

“But, Sousuke-senpai-”

“I think it would be for the best,” Sousuke interrupts, forcing himself to ignore the way Momo’s face crumbles.

He doesn’t walk Momo back to his dorm, but he does linger as far away as possible to watch him get dressed, make sure he’s okay, as if he could do anything to fix it if he wasn’t. All he ends up doing is staring at the long, lean lines of his back, and this is so not the kind of mentor he needs to be. By the time he’s back in his own bed his head is a mess of thoughts, and his shoulder aches in sympathy.

-

This all really began right at the beginning of the year, not long after Rin swapped rooms and left Ai to deal with Momo as his new roommate. Rin had spent a few nights over there, kicking Momo out in his pajamas and telling him to go find something to do - so naturally, he went to the place Rin left vacated.

“Your shoulder is so big,” he’d said, forcing himself next to Sousuke on the lower bunk. He rested his head on said shoulder, watched with droopy eyes as Sousuke organized the notes he’d saved on his phone - Sousuke only covered the screen when he was rearranging calendar notifications for his doctor’s appointments. “I could fall asleep on it.”

Sousuke grunted, only turning to stare in mild shock at the top of his head. His entire body broke out in shivers when Momo’s tousled hair started tickling his collarbone, and it didn’t take long to piece the rest of it together - Momo is shockingly honest, when he wants to be.

“Or your chest,” he mumbled, and Sousuke’s stomach did a twirl. “I could fall asleep on your chest so easily.”

Sousuke must’ve looked hard enough that time to get Momo to look up at him, the very tip of his chin perched on his shoulder. It should’ve hurt, since he’s so bony and the muscles there had just begun to start getting sore again, but it felt kind of nice. The worst part was how close they were, how Sousuke could’ve counted all of the red eyelashes he had threaded in with the darker ones, how he did manage to see the way Momo’s sleep-heavy eyes dilated when they were looking right at each other.

“You’re ridiculous,” he said to Momo, and even thinking now of how fond he sounded makes him cringe.

He nearly kissed him here. Would have, even, if Rin hadn’t barged through the door, stopping and looking at the two of them like they’d formed some sort of outlandish cult in his absence - something illicit and entirely unexpected.

“Uh, I can leave…” Rin had said.

“No, Momotarou was just heading out,” Sousuke said, his heart pounding so hard he thought his clothes shook from it, “He needs sleep, he’s delirious.”

“Am not!” Momo yelped, and Sousuke would have spent at least the rest of the week worrying he’d offended him, if he hadn’t smiled at him secretly, turning right before he closed the door in his wake.

Rin never brought that night up after that, and Sousuke was thankful.

-

After the incident at their night drill, things only seem to get worse, somehow. Momo only seems miraculously less deterred, shame apparently not a word in his vocabulary. He clings to Sousuke at lunches, scoots his thin little hips in between where Sousuke would have otherwise wedged himself between Rin and the wall. It’s this insistently forceful push to get Sousuke to make room for him, and not just at the lunch table, and it’s driving Sousuke insane now.

It doesn’t help that Rin is always gone, spending time with Ai. It’s like he feels guilty ever since Sousuke told him Ai’s tearfully honest fears from the night he caught him crying on the stairs, which isn’t as surprising to Sousuke as it once would have been, how quickly Rin takes things to heart and tries to fix them. It’s like every night is an open invitation for Momo to steamroll his way into Sousuke’s well crafted routine, and even breaking it like he does tonight doesn’t deter him.

He’s sitting out on the grass this time, watching the stars and counting this as some kind of mental technology detox, but Momo hones right in on him like a missile, crashing into him - literally - and rolling over onto his back as he laughs at how badly it startles Sousuke.

“Never thought you’d be much into astronomy,” Momo chirps.

“I’m not,” Sousuke says. “Just needed some air.”

“Air is good,” Momo blindly agrees, and then waits a beat before turning to stare at the side of Sousuke’s face, holding himself up on his elbow. “Are you nervous?” he asks, and then quickly answers his own question with, “Because I am.”

“Nervous?” Sousuke asks, thinking he means nervous about him - about them.

“Yeah, heh. It’s my first relay, my brother will be there. I’m on the team with you, and Rin-senpai, and… you.”

Sousuke laughs helplessly. “Two of me, huh?”

“You’re twice as important.”

The quiet way he says it, like it’s a secret they both know about, makes Sousuke’s stomach flip, pleasant in a way he knows it shouldn’t be. This is dangerous - he’s just a boy, a boy enamored by cute girls, of which Sousuke is definitely not.

“The whole team is important,” Sousuke says, thinking of Rin. “That’s why it’s a relay.”

Momo nods quietly, looks down at the piece of grass he’s tearing to pieces with his short fingernails, and mumbles, “I just hope I’m good enough.”

“You will be,” Sousuke says, with strong enough conviction to get Momo to smile at him. He admires Sousuke, that’s all it is, that’s all it will ever be. It’s just a boyish crush, that’s all it can ever be.

He thinks Momo intends to kiss him on the cheek, which is bad enough to allow as it is, but Sousuke shifts enough to where it lands on the very corner of his mouth. Sousuke can feel the shaky way the boy exhales afterwards, and it makes him feel hot with embarrassed shame to realize that he that he might have done that on purpose. He sits up with a grunt, and doesn’t offer to walk Momo back to his dorm - he knows the way.

-

Sousuke’s shoulder really begins to start hurting again just before the relay, as if the timing couldn’t be worse. And it’s not a brief, sharp twinge of pain, but rather a slow build up, a dull ache, something that starts as discomfort and manifests into a burning throb. Even the freeze spray doesn’t numb it as well as it used to, so he’s started wearing the brace again when he knows he isn’t expected to de-robe for practice.

With the relay looming on the horizon, it means practice is more frequent. Sousuke manages to dodge as many of them as he can - it’s only so long until someone notices though.

Momo walks in on him one night, his legs crossed up on the bottom bunk of his dorm. He doesn’t even knock, just barges in like it’s his own room, walks right in on Sousuke ripping the velcro of the brace from across his chest.

“What-”

“Keep your mouth shut,” Sousuke interrupts the question before he can ask it, his voice dark enough to have Momo catching the hint and quickly shutting the door behind him.

“Did something happen?”

“No,” Sousuke says, yanking off the rest of the velcro, the sound of it suddenly too loud to stand. He slips the brace down his bicep, the same kind of material that they use for wetsuits, and then rolls it up in his lap.

“Um. You’re not at practice.”

“Neither are you,” Sousuke says. He’s looking down at his lap, somehow unable to face Momo at the omission of what’s really been happening.

“Nitori-senpai noticed you weren’t there,” Momo says, scratching the back of his neck and then gesturing vaguely to the rolled up brace in Sousuke’s lap, “I thought maybe something was wrong, but I guess-”

“You guess nothing, I’m fine.”

Momo looks like he’s about to leave, which is equally as relieving as it is upsetting to sit and watch in pained silence, but then he stops before he opens the door.

“You can talk to me, you know?” he says, and Sousuke’s heart seems to tighten, the muscles somehow acutely connected to his shoulder.

He can’t even talk to Rin about it - there’s nothing he can say to Momo that would make it better. So he settles on a quiet, “I know.”

Momo doesn’t move, still standing in front of the door, but half turned like he’s waiting for something. Sousuke stands to stuff the brace beneath the pile of his socks in the top drawer, hidden black beneath a pile of white, like covering a scar. When he turns, Momo is there, waiting still, so Sousuke goes to him.

“You don’t have to check up on me,” he says to Momo. Momo nods slowly, and then dips his head, his eyes a little heavy. It looks like he’s going to lean up and try to kiss Sousuke, or it feels that way at least, a sort of electric crackle in the air between them. Sousuke closes his eyes, prepares and gathers enough strength to be able to push him away, but before he can really tell what’s happening there’s a soft, tender press of lips against the front of his shoulder, right at the taper of his clavicle.

The gesture is so incredibly impulsive and awkward, just a quiet peck of a kiss, and Sousuke is about to try and fill the silence with some other variation of soft rejection, but Momo is quick to leave after that, his cheeks burning. Sousuke presses his hand to the lingering warmth from the boy’s lips and decides he’s tired of telling secrets - he’s never been good at keeping them anyway.

-

It gets harder and harder. Practice is more gruelling, Rin gets more perceptive and questioning. Momo hasn’t done a thing different, but he’s somehow infuriatingly more in the way. He’s like the carrot dangling in front of a horse to keep it going, the treat held out to a animal who doesn’t know when he’s expected to stop following. He’s just a boy, so his body damp from the pool shouldn’t be as enticing as it is, and Sousuke is partly thankful that he’s seen the shoulder brace so he thinks that all of the practice dodging is solely because of that.

He deliberately chooses to shower in the dorms instead of the changing rooms, waits until everyone’s out and then slides a hand slickened by soap down below his stomach. It’s hard to picture Momo gasping and out of breath, as he always seems like he’s immune to tiring himself out, but there are other things. Things like Momo smirking in triumph as he traces the sewn v of Sousuke’s swimsuit, things like how easy it would be to hoist him up, back him against a wall. He’s thin enough to hold, but sturdy enough that he wouldn’t break. If anyone notices Sousuke’s showers get longer and more secretive, they don’t mention it.

There’s talk of Ai joining the relay now. Rin’s dream team, or so Sousuke likes to tease him. He just blushes and swats Sousuke’s hands away, probably more proud than embarrassed, but ashamed to be that way. He would never say this team was his - captain or not, it’s Samezuka’s.

Sousuke hasn’t been coaching Momo for a while now, focused more of his time on Ai, when he can. His technique still needs a lot of work.

“Your time is improving,” Sousuke says, his feet parted shoulder width at the edge of the pool, gazing down as Ai’s thinly toned arms fold over the edge of the tile.

“I’ve been practicing breathing techniques,” Ai says. “Yoga, all the things you said.”

Sousuke lets loose the tiniest hint of a smile despite himself. This kid is so determined to prove something, and only to himself. It’s slight, but the weighted sense of purpose - that Ai might not be doing so well without Sousuke’s help - makes him feel a lot more important than he has lately. Better than feeling like a broken scumbag all the time.

Ai catches the smile, grinning with obnoxious glee in response. Sousuke huffs and turns away, reaches over to the wooden slats against the wall where Ai’s towel is hanging and picks it up as Ai hoists himself the rest of the way out of the water. As Ai’s hand reaches to grip the towel there’s a startlingly loud bang that echoes around the silence of the pool after hours, and Sousuke’s head snaps up.

It’s Momo, frowning angrily, his chest heaving like he ran here and is all out of breath. He looks at Sousuke like he’d punched him from all the way across the pool. Sousuke’s first instinct is to say something. He even opens his mouth to call out to him, to apologize, even though he doesn’t know what the fuck he did wrong, but then Ai murmurs out a softly concerned sounding, “Momo-kun,” and Sousuke turns towards the changing rooms.

The door slams even harder when Momo leaves, and while Ai looks fiercely confused, Sousuke isn’t at all surprised.

It’s only going to get worse from here.

-

Rin finds out.

He tells him, outside in the courtyard, after being asked to go for a walk when he’d twinged his shoulder in the hallway while Rin watched. Rin starts crying, the idiot, but it shocks Sousuke into finally realizing how much he cares. It’s even more alarming when both Momo and Ai show up to meet them out there, the both of them looking for all the world like they’ve known he’s been slowly giving up for months, and they’re ready to accept it. Sousuke almost asks them about it, but decides against it to keep from hurting Rin’s pride about how long it took him to notice.

They lose, but to call it a loss is a stretch. Nanase and his team have worked hard, it’s obvious, and maybe if Samezuka didn’t have him as a kink in the mechanics, they might’ve been the well oiled machine Rin had been hoping for. Even Nitori pulled his weight, which makes Sousuke’s chest swell with what feels like undeserved pride.

Gou asks Rin to go out for a celebratory meal after the whole thing is over. Ai goes with them, and then she courteously asks Sousuke and Momo if they’re interested. She seems shocked, almost, when Momo quietly declines, saying he should spend time with his brother. Only Sousuke seems to notice he’d been waiting for Sousuke to reply, and only made the decision after Sousuke had said he’d sit this one out.

Momo walks in again while Sousuke’s in his room, once again as if he owns the place, as if the room is theirs. Sousuke has a horrible image of a room in the future, one with white walls and surrounded by tall buildings, a city, somewhere where the door locks, but Momo has a key. Sousuke wonders what it is this boy wants from him, whether he thinks about the future at all, and if he ever factors Sousuke into it. Even if he does, he’d probably change his mind in a year. It’s only a crush, he repeats to himself.

“Why didn’t you tell anyone?” Momo asks, cautiously coming to sit next to Sousuke on his bed.

“You knew.”

“I didn’t, you never told me what it was. You never told me you couldn’t swim anymore.”

Sousuke sighs, tired of having discussions about this, his chest heavy with the kind of finality that airing out this kind of truth seems to bring upon himself.

“Because of Rin. He wouldn’t have let me swim the relay, it would have been worse than this.”

Momo huffs like he isn’t amused. “So no university then? Won’t you miss Rin?”

Sousuke’s jaw tightens angrily - as if he has control over this, about his future crumbling at his feet over an injury he’d ignored for too long.

“Of course I’ll miss him. I’ll miss swimming, I’ll miss all of it. All of you.”

“All of us?” Momo asks quietly.

“The team,” Sousuke, says and he catches the barest hint of Momo’s scowl from the corner of his eye. “You know what I mean.”

Momo’s fists curl into the fabric of his track pants, right above his knees. He’s staring down at his feet with about as much focus as he swims with - clumsy, but forced the rest of the way.

“You won’t miss me, then?”

Sousuke looks up at the ceiling in something like defeat, his shoulders slumping. “This isn’t about you right now, Momo.”

“It never is,” he says, turning to look at Sousuke finally, angry enough to have his eyes piercing, right through Sousuke’s resolve. “It’s never been about me and it never will, not with you.”

“I don’t know what you want from me,” Sousuke lies.

“You were my first kiss, you know? My only, I guess.”

Sousuke’s heart aches for the confused frown on the boy’s face - aches for the fact that the tiniest unintentional brush of lips out in the garden had meant so much to him, that he holds onto that as something significant.

“There will be more,” Sousuke says, forcefully keeping his voice even and low.

“I don’t want there to be!” Momo yells dramatically, and Sousuke lurches in a barely restrained urge to cover his mouth for being so loud. He’ll ruin himself if he tells people what almost happened between them, what he might still want to happen. His brother will call him a freak, the entire school will map him as a target. And all for what? A misguided crush that he’ll get over in a few months, after Sousuke leaves.

“What is it you want? Tell me.” Sousuke demands, quietly, worried enough about hearing the answer that his hands tremble in his lap.

“You could, um. Kiss me again?”

He sounds so unsure, it makes Sousuke moan in sympathy, quiet, like he’s still keeping secrets. The biggest one is about the room with white walls, the one in the city where they both know what they want and are allowed to have it. He turns just enough to catch Momo’s cheek, dangerously close to his mouth, kissing him like it’s some kind of bullshit apology. Momo still looks sad when he pulls back, though there’s the tiniest gleam of hope in his eyes.

Sousuke decides to stomp out that flickering flame while he still can.

“You’ll find someone better, I promise-”

“No-”

“Momo, listen to me. Someone your own age, someone you can relate to, someone that hasn’t led you on.”

“You didn’t lead me on, you didn’t,” Momo insists, his voice tight, like his throat is clogged with angry tears.

“I did,” Sousuke says, and it’s half to try and convince himself. It’s for the best, he’s only fifteen. “And I’m sorry.”

Sousuke nearly cracks when Momo angrily wipes the first tear before it has a chance to trail down his face. It takes an amazing amount of self control not to grab him, to hold his face and wipe his thumbs beneath his eyes and tell him he’s sorry, he’s selfish, he wants Momo to make promises that first years in high school shouldn’t make to boys who are headed off to university - or who were headed off to university. Maybe it’s even worse now he has no plan.

Instead he sits and watches as Momo stomps childishly out of his dorm, slams the door so hard behind him that it makes the walls quake, and then sits and feels like he’s had his heart trampled on by multiple parties, like this is the day that tests him to breaking point.

Only Rin comes back shortly after looking proud - of himself, of Sousuke, of the team - and Sousuke can’t find it in him to mope about it. He brought this - all of it - on himself.


End file.
